Category Archives: Creatures 3 / Docking Station

Hello everyone! I’m just making a quick announcement in the interest of keeping promises that I made while I was active here.

For those of you who don’t remember, last year I promised to upload the CCSF 2014 Random Event Forum run’s videos to YouTube for permanent storage. Twitch doesn’t keep videos forever (even Highlights!) so they needed to be put somewhere.

You can find the YouTube playlist for the videos here. All videos aren’t available online yet but part 2 of the final day (day 9) should be online on the 25th of this month. I’m making this announcement early because my husband and I are moving and I won’t be available to make the announcement when the final video is online. Thanks for reading, thanks for watching.

With the 3 month long Random Event Nurture Follow Up Run (This thing’s name just keeps on changing) finally, finally, finally over, I can move on to new and interesting projects. I asked for input at Creatures Caves, and I got some interesting feedback. Perhaps the most appealing idea to me though was revisiting the Matriarch Mermaids concept.

The more I thought about it, the more complicated the world concept got so rather than sit around and speculate while I knitted, I decided to put my thoughts to paper (metaphorically) and finally get this bad boy outlined. It might even change before I finally get the run started.

Besides, the better organized I can get this thing, the easier it will be for me to follow when I finally get around to starting it and running it. Because I lack the patience and time, I won’t be closely investigating the (male) mermaid’s genetics unless something unusual crops up. All the new queens will have their genetics investigated, however.

Anyway, that’s enough of that. Let’s get some details down.

Matriarch Society
– At all times, there will only be one female in the world. All of her daughters will be exported and tested before being reintroduced.

– Daughters will have to pass the classic IQ test (no added hazards) and have their genetics looked over. Of the girls that pass, the queen will be the first to breed. In the event of a tie, the girl with the first (leftmost) pregnancy notification will be queen. Once she has become pregnant, all other girls will be exported for a separate run, splicing or testing; deleted; or saved for future upload.

– The male population will not be closely monitored at all and generations might get mixed up. All of the queen’s “surviving” male offspring will be allowed to stay in the world and will only be removed if problems crop up. Problems include sliding and other gait issues, failing to pass the IQ test, fast agers, immortals, etc. Fast agers and immortals should be impossible with the genome I plan to use.

– To prevent breeding outside of the aquatic area, males and females will be kept separate until adult hood.

Amphibious Species
– There is an added challenge related to egg laying. Only eggs that are laid on land in the “brooding areas” will be considered viable, “surviving” eggs. In Artemia Seas, the two areas on the sides of the map are considered the brooding areas. Eggs that were laid underwater will be considered “drowned” outside this space will be considered un-incubated due to cold and will be deleted with the Mini-Recycler. Artemia Seas is too large to accommodate this. Instead, I’ve set the egg limit to 30+ the max population to allow for many eggs.

– Mermaids will not be allowed to enter the aquatic area of the world until they have reached breeding age. In the genome I will use, this is when they’ve grown their tail. Once they’ve reached adulthood, they will not be allowed back “on land”.

Colorful Creatures– I plan to use CFF, Colortrue Pearlmaids. This in mind, I will start the world with a rainbow of colors. Each time a new queen is introduced, a new, Generation 1 male will be added. His color will be chosen based on the world’s dominant colors.

– I will make the appearance, pigment and blending genes highly mutatable as well.

Fierce Competition (?)
– I had an idea to introduce a “predatory” species, namely Artemia Grendels. I would love to see these as colortrue and do a run similar to this with the Grendels but here, in this setting, I think I’d like to keep their role subdued.

– Ideally, the grendels here would take on Grendel Man’s Flesheater Grendel concept and be a survival pressure on the Pearlmaids rather than a natural disaster.

Eventful World– I enjoyed playing with the Random Event concept so much during last year’s CCSF that I think it could make a fun addition to this world.

Once Delia was taken away by the Sparkle Reaper, Fidget roamed back to the garden. Stain remained by the lemons and Mese and Aster spent time in the temple together. By now, Stain was the youngest at just under 5 hours old. We’ve come quite a ways in just over 3 months!

While Stain snoozed, Fidget moved on. Afterwards, he smashed jugs. I can only guess to alleviate stress over his friend moving on. I will miss Fidget’s pink coloring. She was a mother to many, many eggs as well and even continued to have eggs into Old age. She had quite the following when she lived in the desert but she had a peaceful send off in Old Albia, I think.

Aster and Mese both came to join Stain by the lemons. I guess the sunflower seeds didn’t provide them with the fat and protein they needed or they knew about Fidget and wanted to give her a send off. Either way, they were all together now and spent their time eating and complimenting each other.

Mese was next to depart. He had two friends at his side when he passed away and died comfortably, full of lemons and potatoes.

He didn’t quite get into the spirit of smashing jugs at the end and though he became a tomato whisperer in the stream, he didn’t really stand out here. Still, far as I could tell, there wasn’t a norn around that didn’t like him.

This left us with just two norns left. They were only 15 minutes apart in age, but I didn’t want Stain to be alone when he died. Instead, I decided to inject him with ATP Decoupler once Aster passed away. She was so well liked and even loved by so many norns, including Stain. I’m sure he’d want to move on with her. Eventually, the time came for Aster and that’s precisely what I did.

Finally, I just had to tackle the daunting task of hatching all of the eggs and running them through IQ tests before uploading them. Wish me luck!

Soon, Stain couldn’t hang around and argue with Flame. Flame passed away, another natural death. In response to this, Stain proceeded to eat all of the sunflower seeds. Appropriate.

Finally, without the distraction, Stain was moving towards the garden where the other norns were. He met with Aster and Delia who were eating potatoes and lemons. He even started saying “me like norn” again. I guess he just didn’t like Flame.

Now down to just 5 norns, things were a bit easier to keep track of. The eggs, of course, were the exception since there were now 64 in the world. This meant we had nearly 200 total babies. I wasn’t sure and couldn’t count for myself because all of the egg bombs were removed, but that was still a tremendous number. I almost couldn’t wait for the IQ test to thin the numbers a little.

All of the existing norns were now in the Old and Ancient stages of life and I had roughly another hour and a half left in the game while I waited for the group to live out their natural lives. It seemed like everyone was much to old for babies, too. It was a relief not to have to concern myself with eggs anymore.

The norns didn’t stray from their groups for a long time. Aster, Delia and Stain all clung to each other near the lemon trellis. Fidget and Mese also stuck close to each other by the scarecrow. Fidget and Delia both had to get slapped on the bottom to get them to move. It seems EES was present even in a place with such abundant food.

Soon, the norns all gathered together by the lemons. Fidget led Mese to the others. After this reunion, Delia’s time came and she passed away. She was a loner until the very end. She hardly seemed interested in other norns at all and it was really only by chance that all of the remaining norns decided to come to her side before she died.